Lupinotuum
by FlamingMooseNinjasOfEpicness
Summary: Written for I Am A Book Ninja's contest, "Princess Bride Quote Challenge". Lupin tell the Marauders that he's a werewolf, and recounts the experience.
1. Secrets

**A/N: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for I Am A Book Ninja's competition, Princess Bride Quote Challenge. As always, enjoy and don't forget to R&R!**

Sirius POV:

"Hey guys? Come here." Remus looked up suddenly from the book he was reading, a worried expression adorning his face. Remus was usually so laid-back, it was strange to see him so tensed up.

James quickly got a hold of the snitch he was playing with and looked up at Remus. "Yeah, what's up?" he asked lightly.

"Uh, there's something I need to tell all of you. I should've told you a while ago, I guess." Remus slowly placed a bookmark in the page he was on and gently shut the novel he was in the middle of.

"Well out with it, already." I grinned at him, shaking back my long tangled hair.

"Not here. Come on, I'll take you to where we can talk." He glanced around to make sure no one was near before taking out a sheet of parchment, yellowed with age. Remus opened it delicately, and took out his wand. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." he chanted, and tapped his want against the paper once. Immediately, lines of ink began to form on the parchment, and soon turned into a map of Hogwarts. Small, labeled footsteps formed on the page and began waking around, as if they were actual peoples' steps.

"Whoa, where'd you get that?" asked Pettigrew, looking at Remus in awe.

"I made it. It was quite simple actually. It shows where anyone and everyone is in the castle right now. Look, there's Severus under his tree." Remus pointed to a spot on the map and, sure enough, there was a pair of footsteps standing still, and in small cramped handwriting it was labeled _Severus Snape_.

"That's bloody brilliant," said James, obviously impressed at him.

"Aw, it was nothing, really." said Remus, blushing slightly, "But that's besides the point. Follow me, guys."

Remus stood up and began walking to the castle, and the three of us followed behind him. Soon we were in the dungeons, not a person in sight. "It also shows passageways out of the castle." Remus told us, pushing aside a slab of rock that was covering a hole in the ground, followed by a long flight of stairs.

"This is so cool. What if we get caught?" I asked him.

"We'll be able to tell. Everyone is labeled on the map, so we'll know if anyone's near the entrance of the passage so we'll know not to come through it.

"That's genius." I remarked, and Remus blushed a little yet again, rubbing the back of his neck.

Once we had all passed through the damp stairway, the four of us emerged into a field of tall, yellowed grass. There were faint ripples in the weeds due to wind, and the sky was bright blue, and not too warm, not too cool. It was basically a perfect day weather-wise.

"Hey, is that Hogsmeade? James shielded his eyes from the sun and pointed out to a small village about two miles away.

"Yep. And this, my friends, is the Shrieking Shack." Remus pointed to an old, run-down, one-room building that was about twenty feet away from them. It loomed over them like an impenetrable shadow. They could tell immediately that this was not a friendly place. Bad things had happened here, and the air was filled with the stench of molding wood and the faint twinge of death. "This is a safe place I can tell you guys." He began to trudge through the weeds towards the small building.

The three of us looked at each other uncertainly before following him. We could trust Remus enough to know that he wouldn't take us anywhere too dangerous.

The wooden door creaked open, and the smell of mold and mildew immediately flooded our noses. We needed to hold back our coughs, but Peter loudly sneezed, breaking the eerie silence that hung in the air and throttled us like a damp towel. The room we were greeted by was black, the darkness only penetrated by the light we let in when opening the front door and a few beams of sunlight that managed to find their way down through the few holes in the unstable roof that threatened to collapse on us at any moment.

Remus navigated the darkness like he had done it dozens of times before and, with the peculiar way he'd been acting lately, I didn't doubt it for one second. He sat down a few feet away, and called us over to do the same. "Lumos." he muttered, projecting light from his wand that was bright enough to let us see the whole room for the most part.

"So what's so important that you dragged us all the way out here to say it?" asked James, shooting Remus his trademark, winning smile that let him get away with so much.

"Well, um, you guys aren't going to believe me, probably," said Remus, suddenly sounding completely unsure of himself.

"Come on, the suspense is killing me. I promise we'll all believe you." I really wanted to hear what he was going to say now, since he was drawing it out so much.

"Well, um," his voice dropped to a whisper so we all needed to lean in to hear him, "I'm a werewolf." His voice was so quiet by the end I wasn't sure I heard him right.

"You're a what?" I asked, pretending to clean out my ears.

"I'm a werewolf." he said again simply.

"Oh, okay then." I glanced at everyone else, unsure of what to say next.

"How'd it happen?" prodded James, who was seemingly unaffected by what Remus just disclosed to us.

"Well, it's kind of a long story." he said slowly, like he was a bit unwilling to tell us about it.

"Come on, we won't judge you, no matter how badly you screwed up this time." James joked, which seemed to make Remus ease up a bit more.

Remus took a deep breath, and began to tell us the whole story.


	2. The Story

**A/N: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for I Am A Book Ninja's competition, "Princess Bride Quote Challenge".**

Remus POV:

The night I first turned into what I am now, it was pretty average for the most part. The sun was just beginning to set, and crisp, clean autumn air surrounded me. I remember everything like it had just happened yesterday.

That evening, I was walking down the street with my bicycle, heading home after a day in the park with a few of my Muggle friends. I was about seven at the time. The sky was streaked with all different colors- pinks, blues, and purples. I had always been one to admire the natural beauty of things, and that had made me stand apart from most other children my age.

Up ahead of me, there was a patch of woods. Everyone said to stay out of the woods, because there were stories of ghosts and axe murderers hiding there. No one ever went into the woods. Unfortunately, I needed to walk past them every day to get to and from school. The trees were too thick to see too far in, but those that I could see were constantly shrouded in darkness, even on the brightest of days.

As I approached the woods, there was a sound behind me. I glanced back to see an unnaturally tall figure walking about twenty feet behind me. There was a limp in his long gait, and he seemed to be leaning to one side- as if his leg was badly injured. I was startled, to say the least, to see someone there so my eyes snapped forward again, and I began to walk a bit more quickly.

Soon, I was right next to the dark woods that in retrospect seemed so much like the Forbidden Forest. I could hear strange sounds coming from the trees, which only added to my incoming sense of dread.

_Calm down, Remus_, I tried to tell myself_, don't jump to conclusions. You don't know if that man is bad; so don't assume that he is._ What I told myself did nothing to calm my nerves. I kept on walking.

A few moments later, I heard the man's footsteps even closer than before. When I dared to glance back I saw that he had advanced, and now was about ten feet away from me. He was wearing a long dark trench coat and his eyes and a hat covered face. I was really scared at that point- when I was younger, horror movies always terrified me, and this felt a lot like the opening scene of one.

My walk quickened, until I was full out running down the street, eager to get to my house and away from all of this. I could hear his walk hurry up to match mine until he was sprinting towards me. I could see my house in the distance, maybe half a mile away. The woods still continued on next to me, and they were hardly the most prominent danger at the moment. There was a rustle behind me, and when I glanced back I saw that the man had stripped off his jacket and hat, and his features were now visible. I had seen this man before. His face was plastered on the cover of the Daily Prophet. I tried to think, but his name wouldn't come to me. Then suddenly, I remembered. This was Fenrir Greyback, werewolf wanted for murder.

The pace of my breath hastened as I ran as fast as I could, leaving my beloved bike behind me. I heard the subtle crunch of metal behind me, and noticed in passing the full moon.

_Oh no, full moon?_ I was terribly frightened, to say the least. There was the sound of ripping fabric, and I knew that his transformation into a wolf had begun. I could just barely hear the soft _thud_ of his paws on the asphalt. Soon I could hear his uneven, jagged breathing and the snap of his jaws that could easily crush a human skull.

Then, he was right on top of me. I ran into the only place I could think of- the woods. I was running blindly through the trees, barely feeling the harsh slap of branches hitting my face, and quickly regaining my balance when I stumbled on the many tree roots. My attempts of escape, though, were in vain. Soon I could feel his razor-sharp claws on my thigh and then I was knocked to the ground.

Fenrir started in on my, and it was all I could do to protect my face. He began to claw up my legs, lapping up the blood that pooled at my feet. I tried to cry out for help, but was immediately silenced by the deep growl emitting from the wolf's throat. So I sat there, crying silently with the occasional audible whimper while he slowly began to bite and claw at my legs.

Then, he stopped at my legs and walked towards my head. I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes tight; preparing myself for the unbearable agony that was about to overwhelm me. He slightly parted his lips, smiling a cruel wolf grin. He opened his jaws, and began to pull at my hair. My scalp burned at the loss of clumps of hair, yet I didn't make a sound for I knew that if I outwardly yelled, my fate would be even more painful than before.

He dragged me by the hair further into the woods, and was about to maul my face. Suddenly, he stopped in his place. His pointed ears priced up, and then howled off into the distance. Then, there was a howl that must've been two or three miles away. He bayed once more before shooting me a disgusted look and trotting off into the murky darkness of the forest.

I lay in that spot for hours, feeling so much pain and stinging at once. Every few minutes I tried to convince myself to get up and move back to the road, but my body outright refused to move, so I ended up staying still. When the night was black and the moon hanging in the middle of the sky, I finally willed myself to get up and move a little. The huge gash in my leg had set a bit, but when I stood up it reopened and the pain came back, almost as strong as when I got the wound. Even so, I kept on walking towards the sound of the occasional car speeding by on the road. Soon, I emerged from the inky black forest to the road that I had been just hours previously, though it felt like a lifetime I was walking with my bicycle, just going home from a day at the park.

I limped to the side of the road, and gazed at the remnants of what used to be my bike. It was a complete wreck now, with shredded tires and the metal bars twisted at odd angles. It was unsalvageable, so I just continued down the street towards my house.

When I took the first step on the gravel road, I gasped for air and immediately retreated back to the grass. I had lost my shoes somewhere in the forest and the cuts on my feet had begun to bleed once more. There was no way I'd be able to walk on the road without making my cuts even worse, so I just walked on the grass.

The wet dew on everyone's lawns soothed my feet a bit, and didn't make it so hard to walk. My legs were still burning like someone had raised a match to them, but I bit back the pain, clenched my fists, and carried on.

A few cars roared by me while I was walking, but none slowed to check to see if the bloodied, mangled boy on the side of the road was alright. Not that I'd expected the to, though. And it would be a bit hard to explain to Muggles that a werewolf attacked me.

I soon reached my house, with the warm porch lights casting a soft glow onto the front lawn. Through the front window, I could see my mother reading a book on the couch. When I approached the front porch, she glanced up and instantly turned as white as a sheet. She shut her book and put it on a side table before hurrying outside to see me.

"Where were you? Your father and I…" she trailed off, seeing the blood that covered me. ""My poor Remus! What happened?" She put an arm around me and helped me inside. I grimaced at the pain, but didn't make a sound. Whining would only worry my mother even more. When we were inside and sitting on the couch, she called for my father. He came downstairs and looked horrified at the amount of blood streaked on my face and body.

"What happened?" he asked firmly, a look in his eyes that clearly said, _I will murder whoever did this to you_.

I knew that there was no point in lying so I truthfully said, "There was a werewolf. Fenrir Greyback."

My father inhaled sharply, and sat down on the couch next to my mother. "I was worried about this," he muttered more to himself than anyone else. "Where did it happen?" he said more loudly and clearly.

"In the woods." I replied meekly, beginning to become dizzy from the blood loss.

"Can you go get a wet towel?" Dad asked my mother, who nodded and hurried to the bathroom where we kept all of the towels. I soon heard running water from the tap, and my mother's worried footsteps pacing around the hall.

"Listen, you've been attacked by a werewolf. Things are going to be a little different now, do you understand?" His voice was low and intense. I nodded, even though at the time I didn't know how different he meant. "This means that every month at the full moon, you're going to change. I know that it wasn't your fault, but bad things are going to happen. You'll change into one of them as well, and it will be very painful. You won't be able to control yourself then. Also, we're going to need to talk to the people at Hogwarts to make sure you're still allowed to go." He finished, the serious expression still on his face.

I remember that I was so scared. Usually my father was such a light and easy-going person. Whenever he was harsh like this meant that something bad was afoot. Even at the age of seven, I realized this. Now every month at the full moon, I change into a horrid beast. Dumbledore let me go to the shrieking shack during my transformation so I would be away from everyone and I wouldn't do anything I would regret. Just once I wasn't in the safe house during my transformation, and it was horrible- or so I'm told. Whenever I change into a werewolf, I can't remember a single thing. I can just fell the emotion of rage and hunger, and that is all that carries across to the next morning. I was- and still am- horrified at the beast I've become, but no way is that going to stop me living my life. Lycanthropy is just a mere obstacle on the road of life. An obstacle that I can and will overcome every month.


End file.
